How to Read the Wheel of Fortune Tarot Card

Learn how to read the Wheel of Fortune tarot card from expert Ellen Goldberg, M.A. in this Howcast video.

Transcript

Hello. I'm Ellen Goldberg, and I welcome you to A Tarot Moment from the School of Oracles. In this segment, we're going to take a look at the Wheel of Fortune. Here we've come to the mid point of the deck of the major arcana, of course. Actually, the mid point are three cards: atryptic, the wheel of fortune, justice and the hanged man. So this is the beginning of the center, and the wheel is about to take a turn. This card is associated with the Hebrew letter Kaf, which means the hand of man in the act of grasping, but here the grasping hand represents comprehension, and the comprehension is of the cycles of life and the laws of karma and the laws of the universe. When the wheel spins, if you're on the outer rim, you're gonna get thrown this way and that. But when there's a spinning wheel and you're in the center, why, you can remain clear and stationary even as the wheel spins, and this card is a way of bringing us to our center and announcing new cycles of life and ways of perceiving it, controlling them, and entering them, because if we understand the laws of the universe and, in fact, its Hebrew letter Kaf, it was given the planet Jupiter who rules the laws of the universe as its astrological counterpart. Jupiter is beneficent and this wheel would like to make a good turn for us. It's a complex card. It's really more like a mondala than any of the other major arcana cards, there are so many component parts to it. We see in the four corners the four animals that Ezekiel saw when he had his vision. Actually, they're the four fixed signs of the zodiac. The angel is Aquarius, the eagle stands for Scorpio, the bull is Taurus an the lion is Leo. These are the four pillars of the year. Closer to the wheel we have the sphinx, which is Isis Hathor. She is the one that stays stationary as the wheel turns, and who propounds the riddle of existence. How well do you understand and use the laws of cycle, the laws of karma, and understand that what goes around comes around? The snake is the golden snake that comes down into manifestation. For some it may be the idea of evil as in the snake in the garden of Eden, but for others its vibration. Notice the vibrating look to his body. And he comes into the Sea of Manifestation. We have to deal with all kinds of things down here once we've manifested on planet Earth, and something has to bring it down to us and manifestation includes both good and evil. The rising figure that's red is Anubis, really a combination of Hermes and Anubis, the guider of souls and the symbol of the ever-evolving human consciousness. It is called sometimes Hermanubis. They contract the two names together, and this shows our potential for evolution. Look how many interesting things are going on inside the wheel. The letters on the farthest rim of the wheel you can see that there are both Hebrew letters and the word tarot intermixed together. We start at the top and if we go in a clockwise direction we can read T-A-R-O-T. If we also start right after the T and go clockwise we can read the four letters of the name of God in Hebrew, Yud He Vav He. Tarot is a very interesting word and there are all kinds of theories as to what it actually means. Many, of course, say it simply comes from the Italian word Tarotche, which was a game of cards that this deck may have evolved from or may have sheltered this knowledge until the world was ready for it, but in another way those letter, those four letters, they are an anagram for a very special sentence, and they make up four very interesting words. First of all, depending on where we start we can see if we start with the R, we have Rota, R-O-T-A. That's wheel. Then, of course, we have taro, T-A-R-O, and we have the Latin, if we start with the O and go counterclockwise we have Orat, O-R-A-T, to speak, in Latin. We also have the Hebrew Tora, T-O-R-A, which is the law. And lastly we start with the A and go counterclockwise, we have A-T-O-R, which is a form of the name Hathor, the Egyptian goddess of nature. Put these together and we have "The wheel of the taro speaks of the laws of nature," or "the laws of Hathor." On the inner part of the wheel, we have alchemical symbols, mercury, sulfur, salt and the Aquarius symbol down at the bottom, those double waves, which is the alchemical symbol for disillusion, or melding and merging into what is. When you get this card in the reading on the higher polarity, it can represent that a new cycle is about to begin. It also is the advice to come to your center so you're not thrown by the circumstances of life, and also to remind you that there are cycles in everything, and that there is karma in everything. In fact, this is one of the few cards that has a very special meaning that is both the same on both the upper and the lower polarity, and that is "there are no accidents." You can apply this in the most positive way, and in a difficult way as well. When this card is on its lower polarity, you are blocked. You are thrown by circumstances, and you are being spinning out of control, and probably you don't understand the laws of the universe and its an invitation to come and start to work with understanding that everything has a time. For everything there is a season, and there are reasons for everything that happens. For the School of Oracles this is Ellen Goldberg. Bye for now.